Reading of the Word of God
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Whoever lives and believes in me
will never die.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
1 Timothy 1, 15-17
Here is a saying that you can rely on and nobody should doubt: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. I myself am the greatest of them;
and if mercy has been shown to me, it is because Jesus Christ meant to make me the leading example of his inexhaustible patience for all the other people who were later to trust in him for eternal life.
To the eternal King, the undying, invisible and only God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
If you believe, you will see the glory of God,
thus says the Lord.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia
Paul recalls the mission of preaching the Gospel entrusted to him and remembers when the Lord met him on his way to Damascus. He thanks the Lord for his great goodness and mercy, as the Lord called Paul while he was “a blasphemer and a persecutor and a man of violence.” Paul presents himself to Agrippa with these words: “I not only locked up many of the saints in prison, but I also cast my vote against them when they were being condemned to death. By punishing them often in all the synagogues I tried to force them to blaspheme; and since I was so furiously enraged at them, I pursued them even to foreign cities” (Acts 26:10-11). Paul wonders how God could choose him notwithstanding that. He thinks being considered trustworthy to serve the Gospel is a miracle. Paul knows that the only reason for his mission comes from above: “I received mercy.” This is true, indeed, for every disciple. Anyway, Paul does not justify his past life with his ignorance of the Gospel. He acknowledges that he was driven by the blind power of evil that always leads to unjustified and unjustifiable violence. Therefore his gratitude to God for the superabundant gift he received is even greater. From then on the apostle has a new life in communion with Christ, from whom he takes strength of faith and urgency of charity. He never forgets his past, repudiated life, but its memory is the cause of his humility and gratefulness. He considers himself “the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God the least of the apostles, not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God” (1 Cor 15:9), “the very least of all the saints” (Eph 3:8). He is, indeed, the example for disciples of all ages. He is the clear testimony that no one is too distant from God to be reached by His mercy. His praise ends with a thanksgiving prayer. Besides, how could we not pay the greatest honour to the Lord who shows such a large love for sinners
Prayer is the heart of the life of the Community of Sant'Egidio and is its absolute priority. At the end of the day, every the Community of Sant'Egidio, large or small, gathers around the Lord to listen to his Word. The Word of God and the prayer are, in fact, the very basis of the whole life of the Community. The disciples cannot do other than remain at the feet of Jesus, as did Mary of Bethany, to receive his love and learn his ways (Phil. 2:5).
So every evening, when the Community returns to the feet of the Lord, it repeats the words of the anonymous disciple: " Lord, teach us how to pray". Jesus, Master of prayer, continues to answer: "When you pray, say: Abba, Father". It is not a simple exhortation, it is much more. With these words Jesus lets the disciples participate in his own relationship with the Father. Therefore in prayer, the fact of being children of the Father who is in heaven, comes before the words we may say. So praying is above all a way of being! That is to say we are children who turn with faith to the Father, certain that they will be heard.
Jesus teaches us to call God "Our Father". And not simply "Father" or "My Father". Disciples, even when they pray on their own, are never isolated nor they are orphans; they are always members of the Lord's family.
In praying together, beside the mystery of being children of God, there is also the mystery of brotherhood, as the Father of the Church said: "You cannot have God as father without having the church as mother". When praying together, the Holy Spirit assembles the disciples in the upper room together with Mary, the Lord's mother, so that they may direct their gaze towards the Lord's face and learn from Him the secret of his Heart.
The Communities of Sant'Egidio all over the world gather in the various places of prayer and lay before the Lord the hopes and the sufferings of the tired, exhausted crowds of which the Gospel speaks ( Mat. 9: 3-7 ), In these ancient crowds we can see the huge masses of the modern cities, the millions of refugees who continue to flee their countries, the poor, relegated to the very fringe of life and all those who are waiting for someone to take care of them. Praying together includes the cry, the invocation, the aspiration, the desire for peace, the healing and salvation of the men and women of this world. Prayer is never in vain; it rises ceaselessly to the Lord so that anguish is turned into hope, tears into joy, despair into happiness, and solitude into communion. May the Kingdom of God come soon among people!
For the sick, in memory of the dead, for peace
